Tra La is May - the Lusty month of May!

Well to be honest its nearer June by now, but May has always been one of my favourite months - well in the UK that is..... here in the Middle East its when life starts to get hot, hot and even hotter!  Temperatures soaring into the mid 40's (centigrade that is!!) and so most time spent indoors with the air con switched on - as it will be for the next few months!

The title for this week's blog comes from the fact that I have been turning back time by looking through old photograph albums.  I found some photos of when I was in Camelot - had such a laugh, I was sooo skinny, and some of the costumes were absolutely hideous!!  Think cones on heads with chiffon attached to the back or pointy boots a la Blackadder the First!!  Thank goodness they are not digital!!

I have also started to listen to 'Fifty Shades of Grey' - lots of hype about this book and it's foray into the world of S&M.  However the first 3 hours were VERY tame and I was fine with audio - until this morning when on the bike at the gym and it started to steam up - JUST could not bear to listen and had to switch off and then download to the Kindle instead to hide my embarrassment!  A 49 year old on the bike at the gym is not a pretty sight anyway, let alone a 49 year old on the bike listening to someone narrate kinky sex........hahahahaha!

Well as for the knitting - have been doing ok on that front aside from one mess up which I will reveal later!

Firstly I finished my Tidal which I really enjoyed knitting - although I had to do lots of skein changing to make sure I did not have too much pooling.  It seemed like the finishing took just as long as the knitting - but its a lovely pattern.


I must take a photo of me wearing it as the photo does not really do it justice and its much brighter in 'real life'.

The next FO was the Knitted Postcard which I did as part of the UAE Amiras swap.  I always knew that I wanted to do something with knitted flowers since I really love the Knitted Flowers book I have and knew I wanted to do something out of that.  I was pleased with it, although took a lot longer than I thought it would - there is no getting away with a few flowers.....you have to knits loads!!  Anyway I passed over to my swap partner last week and she liked it so hurrah for flowers!



Then the last knitting news is that I have cast on the Cedar Leaf Shawlette and boy oh boy have I made a right royal mess of it!  Due to not reading the pattern and just complete knitting incompetence!  Frogged twice already and now I realise I have been doing the short row shaping with the wrong number of stitches.......DOH!! but I am half way through now so I think I will just fudge along with the leaves.  Its not as if its not clear on the pattern - Alana writes such fab patterns - I just did not concentrate on reading.  I blame The Killing which I am addicted to, which requires me to multi-task, ie watch, read and knit!!

Finally a quick update on my health situation - new surgeon wanted a biopsy which has been a bit of a pain since firstly there was some problem with the insurance, and then when I finally went along for the procedure, the Radiologist decided that she cannot get to the right parts so I have to have another more complicated procedure, which apparently sounds as if I have to spend 2 hours in a mammogram machine whilst being skewered with needles - going back to the Camelot/Blackadder theme it sounds like it would fit very well into a Medieval torture chamber (hmm a bit like Fifty Shades of Grey too!!)

I would like to dedicate the song below to my body - who has treated me a bit like a cheating lover over the last few years......

Fighter




Speak soon

xx
So I have not written for a while - and so much has been going on ........... too much in fact!

So we will start with the good stuff!!  I have been knitting quite a bit and thankfully making progress on my WIP - so much so that I have finally finished the Atelier ..... yes, yes I know, I started that over a year ago, BUT I can finally tell you that I have Finished it!! Hurrah!  Very pleased with it and actually had occasion to wear it on my trip to Paris ...... more on that to come....

I also managed to knit up two pairs of fingerless mitts - one pair to match the Courtenay (see previous post) and one plain pair for Fred as an addition to his costume for Oliver! - which incidently was about the best children'r production I have ever seen - and I have seen a few!

Atelier in Madelinetosh Pasmina - Twig colourway
'Courtenay' Fingerless Mitts
'Oliver!" Fingerless Mitts
Holden Shawlette





Then I finished a Holden shawlette - a lovely pattern which I did in Malabrigo sock yarn.  Its has a very Edwardian feel to it - which is very apt given my obsession with Downton Abbey!

So my knitting mojo has been working overtime!  I also finished my Harvest Moon cardigan, but photos were not great of that one - check out on my Ravelry page: Here

                                                                       ****


BUT no more of the knitting - I had a fantastic trip to Paris recently - originally I had to go for work, but I managed to persuade Keith and Fred to come and meet me and head over to Disneyland.  Not before however I had a day, yes a whole day, to myself!  What bliss!  I downloaded a walking tour of Paris and headed over to Montmatre before coming back over the Seine to St Germain - the weather was awesome and I had the best time ever before meeting the boys and having a fantastic few days in Disneyland being a big kid again.  I love Paris!












Magical!!


Ok so that was all the good news!  Unfortunately the bad news is that after trip after trip to hospital and test after test, it seems that I have early stage Breast Cancer..........

Seems life has sent me another curve ball to deal with!  Surgeon to see in a couple of days to decide on the next course of action - partial or complete mastectomy - which I can't say I am looking forward to.  However I have been strong before and I can be strong again.

Just a word to those of you who know me on Facebook - please don't mention it on there as my parents read my updates and for the time being I cannot face telling them - they will be devastated, since I think they (and I!) feel that I have had my quota on life threatening diseases already and I am sure that they will be worried to death with me being over in the UAE whilst they are in the UK.  However I think that at the moment I want to keep the kids lives as normal as possible...........